Why Catholic Branding (and Christianity as a whole) Should Take a Page From Lady Gaga

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Some thoughts from my blog regarding the the poor branding and marketing of the Catholic Church and how it might go about making it better…
In the latest edition of The Economist, Schumpeter wrote a piece comparing the leadership style of Mother Teresa and Lady Gaga. In it he describes two recent publications describing their surprisingly similar leadership approaches, “Mother Teresa, CEO,” by Ruma Bose and Lou Faust and “Lady Gaga: Born This Way?”, a case study by Jamie Anderson and Jörg Reckhenrich. He goes on to talk about how each shortened their names early on in life, how each worked incredibly hard to gain success, and how each appealed to the outsider!

This really got me thinking. I never considered how Mother Teresa’s target “market”, supporters, and volunteers, in many ways were the same demographic that the likes of Lady Gaga aim for. The radical way in which Mother Teresa lived her life obviously hit a chord with those feeling alienated and abandoned in India and all over the world. But if you think a little more, it is very easy to find other examples. Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, provides homes for those with intellectual abilities (definitely outsiders)… Brother Roger, founder of the Taize Community, which attracts tens of thousands of young people and promotes kindness, simplicity and reconciliation (Yeah, I would call that outside the norm)… And the list goes on and on.

So why did people like Mother Teresa, Brother Roger, and countless others make the focus of their mission the outsiders and the abandoned? Because that is what Jesus did! He didn’t hang out with the wealthy and those with the deep pockets, his friends were revolutionaries, fishermen, prostitutes, the marginalized, etc. Sadly, it seems like the Catholic Church has forgotten its roots. It is safe to say the majority of people in the Catholic Church consider themselves the majority, when Christianity as a whole only makes up 15%-20% of the world’s religion. It it time that Christianity be again marketed as a way of life for the few and not the many.

This is where the Catholic Church can learn a bit from Lady Gaga, of all people! What his her schtick? If you take away the meat dresses, 8” heels, and costume changes, it is pretty basic… “I’m just like you. I am an outcast. I am alienated just like you, but it is ok, we can get through this together.” This acceptance of “the other” in society, Schumpeter mentions is very appealing to teenagers, a market that Catholicism is horribly bad at attracting and retaining.

The Catholic Church needs to realize this isn’t the Roman Empire; Christianity isn’t the norm in the world that we are living in. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, loving our enemy, is something completely counter-cultural and should be marketed as such. If the Catholic Church made a concerted effort to promote its wares to those who feel rejected and alienated from the world, it would experience a rebirth of sorts that would help it find its place in the 21st Century.
michaeljkrell.com/post/6344722490/why-catholic-branding-and-christianity-as-a-whole
 
None of us can ever give enough to the poor, love enough of the marginalized, or care enough for the forgotten. I do not know if you are aware of the “Ten Building Blocks of the Catholic Faith” but, they are the Pricipals of: 1) Human Dignity, 2) Human Life, 3) Association, 4) Participation, 5) Preferential Protection for the Poor and Vulnerable, 6) Solidarity, 7) Stewardship, 8) Subsidiarity, 9) Human Equality, and 10) The Common Good. A complete explanation of these teachings is outlined in William J. Byron’s paper published by the U.S. Catholic Bishops. The Catechism of the Catholic Church fully explains its social teaching as well. Dorothy Day, Cardinal Bernardin, Aquinas, Ambrose, etc., all kept and keep Catholic social teaching at the forefront of the faith. Bring this information to your Pastor and ask how he incorporates them into RCIA, Teaching the Faith, and the parish.👍
 
mjk01 said:
Some thoughts from my blog regarding the the poor branding and marketing of the Catholic Church and how it might go about making it better…
In the latest edition of The Economist, Schumpeter wrote a piece comparing the leadership style of Mother Teresa and Lady Gaga. In it he describes two recent publications describing their surprisingly similar leadership approaches, “Mother Teresa, CEO,” by Ruma Bose and Lou Faust and “Lady Gaga: Born This Way?”, a case study by Jamie Anderson and Jörg Reckhenrich. He goes on to talk about how each shortened their names early on in life, how each worked incredibly hard to gain success, and how each appealed to the outsider!

This really got me thinking. I never considered how Mother Teresa’s target “market”, supporters, and volunteers, in many ways were the same demographic that the likes of Lady Gaga aim for. The radical way in which Mother Teresa lived her life obviously hit a chord with those feeling alienated and abandoned in India and all over the world. But if you think a little more, it is very easy to find other examples. Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, provides homes for those with intellectual abilities (definitely outsiders)… Brother Roger, founder of the Taize Community, which attracts tens of thousands of young people and promotes kindness, simplicity and reconciliation (Yeah, I would call that outside the norm)… And the list goes on and on.

So why did people like Mother Teresa, Brother Roger, and countless others make the focus of their mission the outsiders and the abandoned? Because that is what Jesus did! He didn’t hang out with the wealthy and those with the deep pockets, his friends were revolutionaries, fishermen, prostitutes, the marginalized, etc. Sadly, it seems like the Catholic Church has forgotten its roots. It is safe to say the majority of people in the Catholic Church consider themselves the majority, when Christianity as a whole only makes up 15%-20% of the world’s religion. It it time that Christianity be again marketed as a way of life for the few and not the many.

This is where the Catholic Church can learn a bit from Lady Gaga, of all people! What his her schtick? If you take away the meat dresses, 8” heels, and costume changes, it is pretty basic… “I’m just like you. I am an outcast. I am alienated just like you, but it is ok, we can get through this together.” This acceptance of “the other” in society, Schumpeter mentions is very appealing to teenagers, a market that Catholicism is horribly bad at attracting and retaining.

The Catholic Church needs to realize this isn’t the Roman Empire; Christianity isn’t the norm in the world that we are living in. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, loving our enemy, is something completely counter-cultural and should be marketed as such. If the Catholic Church made a concerted effort to promote its wares to those who feel rejected and alienated from the world, it would experience a rebirth of sorts that would help it find its place in the 21st Century.
michaeljkrell.com/post/6344722490/why-catholic-branding-and-christianity-as-a-whole
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Approves of this post WoundedIcon does.

But yeah, one of my pet peeves is how God and Christianity are aligned with a Caucasian middle class way of life, here in America at least. And then you get Protestants protesting that Catholicism is evil because it’s so weird… etc. etc. Ultimately, the Church is pretty cool. In a freaky, ritualistic, counter cultural forget-your-world sort of way. So I don’t like seeing it subsumed by “normality”. If we want Catholicism to appeal to youth again, we have to portray it as unique again. Which actually means precisely the opposite of relevancy - we should seek to have our own identity which distinguishes us from average society. Perhaps this is why we see young people taking shelter in EF parishes, because they want to be Catholic at heart, and not as an adjective. Right now the EF makes it easier (like a litmus test), although that’s no slight against a good traditional OF. It’s just harder to find.

I know as a 21 y/o myself that I was drawn to the Church by orthodoxy and dogma, yes… but also by it’s heritage and culture and image. I thought of Gregorian Chant and saints and mysticism and knights when I became Catholic. I found Bingo. 🤷
 
“Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, loving our enemy, is something completely counter-cultural and should be marketed as such. If the Catholic Church made a concerted effort to promote its wares to those who feel rejected and alienated from the world, it would experience a rebirth of sorts that would help it find its place in the 21st Century”.

Actually, I think the Catholic Church does pretty well in this area, maybe better than most. I have recently moved from Phoenx, AZ, where the Saint Vincent de Paul Society (SVdP) runs a large dining room for the homeless in an area where there are centralized services for this population. They also feed working families at their evening meal to enable people who barely have enough to make ends meet get a chance to stretch their budget and go out to dinner with their families. Across the street is the Andre House (also Catholic) which feeds and houses the homeless also.

When in Phoenix, I worked as a behavioral health technician and brought many people who have a serious mental illness to volunteer at the SVdP dining room. While volunteering there, I met Catholics from many different parishes who came on their own or with a group of similar minded folks from their parish to volunteer. I also met people from other denominations and faiths or no denomination at all.

A couple of observations: First: Many people who attend Mass at a local parish look like everyone else in their neighborhood. If the parish is affluent, the people who attend that parish may be affluent. But that doesn’t mean that the people in the parish have forgotten to see Jesus in the poor. Many spend other parts of the week in service to the needy. You just couldn’t tell it by looking at them in the pews at Mass or by how someone is dressed for Mass. I met many affluent Catholics (I’m not affluent myself, doggone it!) who volunteered daily at the early breakfast meal before going to work or who volunteered at the luncheon meal when their children were in school.

Also: These same people genuinely enjoyed what they did and many interacted on a personal level with the homeless. Many volunteers knew some of the homeless by name and asked about their day. Many realized that the homeless were people too and accepted them for themselves. These more affluent Catholics also welcomed the group of people I brought to volunteer with me as equals in volunteering - working side-by-side with the person with a mental illness and getting to know that person as an individual.

So I guess the real question is, “How do we as individual Catholics choose to live out our Catholic faith on a day-to-day basis”? I cannot take credit for being a great volunteer at Saint Vincent de Paul. I loved volunteering there and I loved my job working with those with mental illness. I truly felt blessed to do what I did. But I actually got paid to serve the hungry as I was being paid to spend time with those with mental illness. The real credit should go to those who left their comfortable lives to do so without pay.
 
I think it is dangerous to present the church primarily as a social service for the poor. This is what has been emphasised in the last decade and the results are not very good: many Catholics have no idea what their faith is really about. There are so many ways of learning about Catholicism these days and ‘marketing’ in this way is not really necessary. Those who are prejudiced and determined not to listen cannot be helped. Others who are willing to listen are more likely to accept catholicism as religion rather than another charity.
 
Contra_Mundum said:
I think it is dangerous to present the church primarily as a social service for the poor. This is what has been emphasised in the last decade and the results are not very good: many Catholics have no idea what their faith is really about. There are so many ways of learning about Catholicism these days and ‘marketing’ in this way is not really necessary. Those who are prejudiced and determined not to listen cannot be helped. Others who are willing to listen are more likely to accept catholicism as religion rather than another charity.
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No one here is presenting the church primarily as a social service to the poor…

Who is a better representative of the Catholic faith than Mother Teresa or Jean Vanier? The great thing about people who dedicate their lives to the service of the poor is that someone can completely disagree with their religious beliefs, but they have to respect their work. To the outsider, a poor Albanian nun who takes care of the dying and hungry in the slums of India gets a lot more respect than 50-80 year old white men who live in the Vatican, wear Italian shoes and funny looking caps on their head. That is what the majority of non-Catholics see when they see bishops and cardinals.

If someone asks who is someone that lived out their faith to the fullest, Mother Teresa is at the top of your list…
 
I enjoy broad generalizations and shocking headlines to get attention as much as the next guy. But this comparo ain’t workin’ for me.

Gaga is all about Gaga. She’s flash, PR, self-promotion and attitude. Mother Theresa never sought attention. It came to her because her accomplishments made her unignorable. Gaga has never done anything of real substance. She’s merely a product manufactured by the music industry and its PR dudes. It’s a raw insult to MT to compare the two.

The Church needs to BOTH live the Corporeal Works of Mercy AND the Spiritual Works of Mercy. Look 'em up. Any and all attempts to elevate one while denigrating the other is destined to fail. Not coincidentally, MT always worked at them both.
 
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